Gulliver's Travels

The funny thing about my job as a VTR (Video Technician Recorder) Operator is that most people don't really understand what I actually do. To be honest, I just recently found out what VTR even stands for! Haha! So I thought posting this pic from "Gulliver's Travels", a movie I recently worked on, might help us all understand my job a little better.Above is a picture I took on my camera phone of the boat used in the movie by the star, Jack Black. For this shot, the crew built a cage on the bow and mounted the camera to the top to film Jack driving the boat. Being that space was limited on the "picture vehicle", the director rode alongside on a separate boat, but still needed to watch the filming live. So I climbed up onto the cage, mounted and connected a modulus transmitter to the camera, which broadcasted the signal wirelessly to a receiver on the directors boat, allowing him to watch everything the camera was filming. Does that make sense?

So, in a nutshell, that's what I do. I transmit, record, and playback video from the camera for the director. Sometimes with wires. Sometime without. But either way, I really like it.

10 Things I've Learned About the Film Industry

After 3 years of working on movies, music videos, and TV commercials, here are a few things I've learned:

10- It's truly not what you know but who you know.
9- When meeting someone, the first person to speak says"pleasure" and the second responds saying "likewise".
8- Celebrities are much more normal than I expected.
7- Beauty commercials never use the actual product they're selling on the actors.
6- Making food look tasty on camera is REALLY hard.
5- You're only as good as your last job.
4- Everyone on set is liberal. If you're not, pretend.
3- Everybody wants to direct. Few do.
2- Getting work is a popularity contest.
1- It's nothing like I expected...

I love it